Chery Tiggo 4 Pro

Chery hasn’t been very prominent in our market for quite a while. Some of you might remember the Chery QQ, and its catchy television advert’s jingle. So, it’s nice to see the brand back. For those who don’t know about Chery, or turn their nose up at its Chinese origins, it’s the third-largest automaker in China, and sold over 1.8 million vehicles in 2023. Oh, and they produce Jaguar and Land Rover vehicles for the Chinese market.

What about the Tiggo 4 Pro? Well, it belongs to the Tiggo family of crossovers, and belongs in the subcompact class. Indeed, it does look quite diminutive in the flesh, but as we’ll discover, is surprisingly spacious on the inside. The Tiggo 4 Pro is sold in several countries and held the number two sales spot in South Africa late last year. In fact, Micro Cars have set an ambitious goal to sell 1,000 units within one year, something that they mentioned at the launch. So, let’s see what the Tiggo 4 Pro offers.

Exterior

The Tiggo 4 Pro is a smart and compact vehicle, with that unmistakable SUV high-riding stance. It’s got projector headlamps and LED daytime running lamps, as you’d expect. It’s also just 4.32m long and 1.83m wide, making it quite easy to drive in Colombo traffic and park in tight spaces. It also comes with LED taillamps, front and rear foglamps, roof rails, and stylish 16-inch alloy wheels. The spec sheet says that it has 185mm of ground clearance, which is useful if you traverse some of the less-posh areas of the capital city.

Looking at the car face-on, the front grille has an interesting design that gives it an almost-3D visual effect. And of course, it’s got chrome. Plenty of chrome. You know how our people like chrome, or nickel, as some like to call it. As for the colour of our test car, it’s a pleasing shade of red that gels with our beachside photo shoot.



Shehan De Tissera from Micro Cars who accompanies me on our test drive tells me that the paintwork is done locally. He also indicates that while they offer a standard array of colours, it is indeed possible to deviate from that. So, if you want your Tiggo 4 Pro in a distinctive shade, do inquire about it from the good folks at Micro.

Mech & Tech

It’s all pretty conventional stuff here. There’s a 1.5-litre naturally aspirated 4-cylinder engine doing duty under the hood, making around 111hp and 138Nm. The ACTECO-branded engine is a Euro V emission standard compliant unit and bears the identification code of E4G15C. Petrolheads, can you see something familiar? Yes, 4G15. That’s because this engine is indeed a Mitsubishi-derived design. It drives the front wheels via a CVT gearbox. The CVT also offers a choice of seven manually selectable pre-set ratios via the Manual section of the gear shifter. 

Braking is via disc brakes on all four wheels, backed up by ABS and EBD. The steering is via an electrically assisted rack. You’ve got MacPherson strut suspension at the front and a semi-independent set-up at the rear. All pretty standard stuff, really.

Driving Experience

The driver’s seat is a manually adjustable affair, and the driving position is pretty standard for a crossover. You’ve got great visibility, and all controls fall easily to hand. Select D, release the electric handbrake, tap the floor-hinged throttle pedal and away you go. First impressions are that the Tiggo 4 Pro is responsive for city driving – given that it’s city traffic that we set off in to. There’s enough verve to keep wayward trishaws at bay, but its not neck-snappingly aggressive. Then, as the road opens up, I give it full beans to reveal ample urge and an engine note that’s noticeable but not raucous.

Joining the Katunayake Expressway, I take it up to an indicated 100km/h, switch on cruise control, and the tachometer hovers around 2,300rpm. It fluctuates of course, given that this is a CVT gearbox, and the cruise control has to work to maintain the speed amidst variables such as road gradient, crosswinds, etc. At this speed, the Tiggo 4 Pro is nicely settled. The engine is barely audible, and there’s next to no wind noise. The ride is calm and quiet, and expansion joints are handled comfortably.

We get off at Ja Ela and join the concrete road towards Negombo. Ah, here’s a nice place to test out the suspension, especially where the road has been broken up. The Tiggo 4 Pro handles the imperfections with aplomb, given that I don’t baby it along. You and your passengers will be kept comfortable, and while bumps are apparent, the way that the impacts are softened is admirable. Shehan tells me that the taller profile tyres selected for Sri Lanka make a difference too. Low profile, rubber band-style tyres are nice to look at, useless for ride comfort. That’s why I laud Micro for selecting a smaller wheel size and a 65-profile tyre for Sri Lanka, rather than going for cosmetics over comfort.

You might be wondering about how we took the two-wheel drive Tiggo 4 Pro onto a beach of soft sand for our photoshoot without getting stuck. Well, it was a combination of factors, including Shehan walking ahead to evaluate the surface and guiding me via hand signals, while I gingerly toed the throttle and kept the traction control firmly on. Meanwhile, photographer Upul exited the vehicle to take photos and provide further guidance. When we felt the front wheels spinning and digging in, we immediately backed off and sought out another path. Driven in this careful and pre-planned manner, we were able to get to the beach, and get back onto the road sans any drama.

Living With the Tiggo 4 Pro

The Tiggo 4 Pro is a great small car for a family, as well as for tourism use. For starters, it’s got impressive air conditioning that properly chilled us during the March heat-wave. The air conditioning and heating system is a digital affair with touch controls, but not a true climate control system. You use the touch pads to move a temperature slider between Hot and Cold. The control panel leads me to believe that higher-spec Tiggo 4 Pros come with dual-zone climate control, but the Sri Lankan spec omits this. That’s alright, as how many of you actually use the dual-zone function anyway?

Rear air vents keep rear-seat passengers cool as well – and I was one of them, as I wanted to check out the experience for myself. Here, I found that the rear seat offers impressive leg room and even more impressive head room. The roof was actually some distance from my head, and I am of average height. Hence, six-plus footers will definitely be comfortable in the rear seat of a Tiggo 4 Pro. There are two USB charging ports for rear-seat passengers as well, and you’ll find one more inside the centre console box, as well as a 12-volt power port.

However, the overall dark theme of the cabin trim, coupled with black leather seats can make things a tad dark. I hope Micro can offer one more colour choice for the interior, or at least the seats. I’m sure there are competent local upholsterers who can produce something suitable. However, I’d strongly recommend against installing seat covers, because I’m informed that the front seats have airbags within them. Hence, installing seat covers will interfere with their operation.

Back to the front cabin, we’ve got a 10.25-inch touchscreen dominating the top of the dashboard. This controls the vehicle’s infotainment system and offers Apple CarPlay plus Android Auto. Bluetooth is present too. You’ve got some physical keys for functions such as media volume, power, and media source. You’ve also got multifunction keys on the steering wheel, including for the vehicle’s voice recognition feature. While studying the dash further, I see that it’s covered in soft-touch materials, and the steering wheel is leather-wrapped. It’s the little touches that make a car pleasant to live with, and Chery has definitely focused on little touches.

We also see several speaker apertures within the car, including at the centre of the dashboard, but our Sri Lankan-spec Tiggo 4 Pro has four speakers – one in each door. The sound quality is surprisingly decent for a four-speaker system. Digging into the media system options, I find an Arkamys-branded option called Soundstage that allows you to define the soundstage depending on whether the driver is travelling alone, or if there are passengers as well. Hmm…maybe Arkamys has a hand in the sound system, even though it’s not branded as such.

The Chery Tiggo 4 Pro can accommodate around 300 litres of cargo in the boot. You can also fold down the rear seat backs to gain up to 1,100 litres of volume. You’ve also got door pockets, and seat-back pockets for added space, plus the obligatory glovebox and centre console box. While studying the interior further, I note that the dashboard is covered in soft-touch materials, and the steering wheel is leather-wrapped. It’s the little touches that make a car pleasant to live with, and Chery has definitely focused on these.

Shehan tells me that the Tiggo 4 Pro’s engine can be remotely started via the key fob, to pre-cool or pre-heat the cabin. While enjoying a cuppa at Coffee Bean, we were able to flummox the security guard by remotely starting the engine to chill the cabin in the sweltering heat. You can also remotely open the windows via the key fob, as well as close them. The car also has automatic proximity unlocking and locking. This feature is particularly useful if you regularly walk away from your car and forget to lock it.

Safety

Chery outfits the Tiggo 4 Pro with a decent safety specification, which includes six airbags, seat belt pre-tensioners, ISOFIX mountings, and emergency brake assist. The spec sheet also says that the car has an electronic stability program, roll stability control, and traction control. Then, you’ve got rear parking sensors, a rear-view camera with guidelines, and even a tire pressure monitoring system. The system displays individual tyre pressures, as well as tyre temperatures in the multi-information display. There’s also hill start assist and hill descent control. Overall, I feel that this is ample for Sri Lanka. Systems like automatic emergency braking and active lane-keeping, for example, will actually be more of a hindrance than a boon in our chaotic traffic conditions.

Fuel Economy and Price

A question raised at the launch of the Chery Tiggo 4 was about what kind of fuel economy an average user could expect. Shehan answered the question with an honest answer of 8km/l in Colombo traffic. This is very reasonable for a 1.5-liter naturally aspirated engine and automatic transmission-equipped vehicle. Indeed, it is the figure that I observed during my test drive when driving in Colombo traffic. When driving on the highway at 100km/h, I was able to achieve approximately 14.9km/l (6.7L per 100km) with cruise control. Switching this off and using a very light foot, I was able to improve this to 15.6km/l (6.4L per 100km).

The price of the Tiggo 4 Pro is 12.9 million rupees, all in. Micro offer a 5-year or 120,000-kilometre warranty on the vehicle. Furthermore, the engine’s fundamental components (block, head, pistons, etc.) bear a staggering 10-year or 1-million-kilometre warranty! This is subject to the vehicle being serviced on time, and some other conditions. For the full set of conditions, it’s best to check with Micro Cars.

Final Words

The Tiggo 4 Pro offers an impressive set of features in a very manoeuvrable package. On the face of it all, you might wonder how it is any different. Well, over the 70 kilometres of seat time I had with it, I discovered more interesting features and aspects to write about. And a key aspect of this positive impression after my test drive is the way that Micro Cars has put the car together. Local assembly has indeed come a long way – in fact, until Shehan told me about the locally performed paint job, I never would have guessed. All that remains now, is for our authorities to give locally assembled cars some much-need relief from the relentless taxation that nearly everything in our emerald isle is burdened with. That will go a long way in helping a wider segment of the public enjoy what our own countrymen and women are making for us.